15 January 2011

Every time I say I will post more often I make myself a liar. So I won't this time, but I would, if, you know, I hadn't already done it so many times.

We drove from Columbia, Missouri to Lee, Massachusetts and back a couple of weeks ago for Christmas and New Year's. We saw family, and celebrated and relaxed. We took the train to New York City and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (and brought Aurora) where we saw a fraction of the things we would have liked to see.

In a little over a week, the project that I've spent months working on for The Missouri Review will go live. Sean has done some amazing artwork for the project and I'm really excited about it.

I'm also starting to get excited about moving us all back to the Berkshires where we belong. I've started viewing all of our belongings with a critical, detached glance - is this chair worth moving halfway across the country? Again? There will be a tag sale of epic proportions this spring. I'm not sure the girls realize just yet quite how epic it will be, but they will.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with 4-month-old Olive, the daughter of my friend Claire, who I will be watching a couple of mornings a week this semester. She is adorable and small and not a fan of me, mostly because I am not her mother and she saw no reason why she should have to put up with me when she already has a perfectly nice family without me in it. She made this as clear as possible by screaming as loud and long as her little lungs could manage. She'll get used to me; we'll have adventures.

The novel is still in progress, but there is progress, which feels good. I've started working on it in chunks, out of order, which seems productive.

Even though Columbia still doesn't feel like home, we're making it work and for the next six months or so (yes, I have started a countdown) we'll be here and happy and busy.